Call it 7/7?

While the G-8 summit focuses on terrorism, Salon.com asks how much the FBI knew, pointing to a Newsweek article from just after the last presidential election. Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the terror attacks yesterday have killed more than 50. According to the Guardian wrap-up of newspaper coverage, many are recalling how the British stood fast through the blitz in World War II and against “30 years of IRA outrages,” as the Daily Mirror put it. A leader (editorial) in the Daily Express, quoted in the Guardian wrap-up, editors wrote:

No longer can we hide behind the futile hope that our security forces had detected every cell and every would-be terrorist operating in this country. They are here and they have shown the devastation they can wreak. We are under attack as surely as our parents and grandparents were during the Blitz. The difference this time is that the bombs are being planted by fanatics who live among us… Our involvement in Iraq, too, will have made us a target for Middle East extremists but we must not forget that what we are fighting for there is democracy and freedom from tyranny. Whatever one thinks about our involvement, it does not warrant the mass murder of innocent civilians. What happened yesterday was an act of barbarity without excuse or reason.

Cheers to the Daily Express for broaching the topic of British involvement in Iraq as a contributing factor, but it points to, to borrow the name of a Star Trek episode, a “Terror Within,” to which the Daily Mail reacts, “Make no mistake, Britain will almost certainly have to sacrifice some of our ancient legal rights if we wish to protect our citizens. Civil liberties mean very little to someone killed by shrapnel…”

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